- South Korea: Regime test-flies its first domestically developed hypersonic weapon
Source: ABC News
“South Korea flight-tested on Thursday its first domestically developed hypersonic weapon, designed to fly at least five times the speed of sound and evade missile defense systems, bringing Seoul closer to what it says could be game-changing weapons capabilities. There was no immediate response from North Korea, which last week tested its own hypersonic missile that landed in the waters near Japan. South Korean President Lee Jae Myung attended the test, saying it’s a major step in strengthening the country’s conventional defense capabilities, according to a statement. It did not elaborate where the test took place.” (10/08/26)
- France: Police attack protesting students with chemical weapons
Source: US News & World Report
“Dozens of students dragged rubbish bins into position outside a high school in northeastern Paris early on Thursday, erecting fresh barricades before police moved in with tear gas as France’s nationwide protests show few signs of ending. The Helene Boucher Lycee has been a flashpoint for clashes in the French capital, and is one of hundreds of schools disrupted by protesters Thursday. … Police have made more than 6,600 arrests since late September, when students, most of them under 18, started protesting to demand more education funding, according to the Interior Ministry. The Education Ministry said that 375 schools were either fully or partially closed on Thursday.” (10/08/26)
- Daylight saving time fight isn’t over as House GOP presses Senate to end clock-turning forever
Source: Fox News
“House GOP leadership is ratcheting up pressure on its Senate counterparts to pass legislation making daylight saving time permanent after President Donald Trump called on Congress to act. The House’s No. 2 leader, Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., told Fox News Digital that ‘there’s no reason Americans should lose an hour of sunlight at the end of the day when more daylight means more time with our families, more activity for our businesses and safer communities.’ ‘President Trump has been pushing to make daylight saving time permanent, and House Republicans delivered by overwhelmingly passing the Sunshine Protection Act. It’s a commonsense change and the Senate should take it up,’ Scalise said.” (10/08/26)
- Report: Amazon cuts approximately 1,000 roles in latest workforce reduction
Source: Yahoo! Finance
“Amazon has eliminated approximately 1,000 roles across several teams, including its Stores business, customer service, marketplace support, and retail engineering operations. Business Insider reported that employees received emails on Tuesday, 6 October 2026, stating that their roles had been eliminated. An Amazon spokesperson told the publication that ‘a small number’ of positions, mainly in the Stores business, had been removed that day. Messages reviewed by the publication from an internal Slack channel with almost 37,000 members indicated that employees in India and the UK were among those affected.” (10/08/26)
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/amazon-cuts-approximately-1-000-085032527.html
- Spain: Woman whose eviction sparked housing protests dies at 87 as crowds chant “murder”
Source: New York Post
“Maricarmen Abascal, the 87-year-old Spanish woman whose dramatic eviction last month sparked mass housing protests that led to an early election, has died, the Madrid tenants’ union said on Wednesday, as thousands demonstrated over her death. Abascal had been in hospital for severe anxiety and exhaustion since her eviction on September 23 from her home of more than 70 years, when police and social workers removed her by stretcher. Her case ignited protests over a mounting housing crisis including a shortage of homes and surging rents. Activists camped out in a major Madrid square. …Trade unions on Wednesday announced a nationwide general strike over housing issues on November 11. The protests, along with parliament’s rejection last week of decrees aimed at curbing evictions and limiting rent pressures, prompted Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez to call an early election for November 29.” (10/08/26)
- Naked, gilded Trump statue goes on display at EU Parliament
Source: South China Morning Post [Hong Kong]
“A gilded statue of US President Donald Trump naked went on display in the European Parliament building in Strasbourg on Tuesday. Danish artist Jens Galschiot is exhibiting the satirical statue, titled ‘Orange Plague’ and also known as ‘King of Injustice’, at the parliament’s headquarters in the eastern French city. It shows the president sitting naked on the shoulders of a much smaller man. In his hand, he holds a long golf club. Including its pedestal, the statue is around 2.5 metres tall and, according to the artist, is coated with 23-carat gold. An orange cloth covering it was removed when it was unveiled on Tuesday. The statue stands at one of the parliament’s busiest intersections connecting two buildings. It is scheduled to remain on display through Thursday.” (10/08/26)
- UK: Police accept Andrew search warrants were unlawful, court hears
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“Thames Valley Police has accepted that the search warrants it used to search Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s homes earlier this year were unlawful, the High Court has heard. The force accepted that the information given to the Old Bailey about warrants relating to their decision to search the former Prince Andrew’s Sandringham home and the Royal Lodge in Windsor was incorrect. Andrew was arrested by Thames Valley Police in February on suspicion of misconduct in public office. He denies any wrongdoing. The warrants were issued before his arrest and his lawyers are challenging their lawfulness. … His arrest in February arose after the US Department of Justice published documents which suggested he had forwarded confidential information to the convicted sex offender when Mountbatten-Windsor was a UK trade envoy in 2010.” (10/08/26)
- Judge rules Tennessee must preserve evidence in Christa Pike killing attempt
Source: United Press International
“A judge ruled that the state must preserve all evidence in the botched [killing] of Tennessee death row inmate Christa Pike. Pike’s attorneys argued for the order saying the evidence would be relevant in case the state tries to [kill] her again. … Judge I’Ashea Myles ordered the evidence be preserved, and gave a long list of specific items to be saved.” (10/07/26)
- US regime suspends Microsoft, others from foreign workers applying for green cards, accuses company of visa “abuse”
Source: Fox News
“Vice President JD Vance and Labor Department officials announced Thursday that the Trump administration is suspending Microsoft, Adobe and others from a key employment-based, green-card program, accusing major tech firms and outsourcing companies of abusing the visa system at the expense of American workers. … Vance said Microsoft laid off 6,000 American workers last year while benefiting from 6,300 H-1B visas and nearly 3,000 green cards, calling it a ‘scandalous system.'” (10/08/26)
- India: Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi detained over election chief protest
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi has been detained for the third time in two days during a protest demanding the resignation of the election chief over a controversial revision of voter lists. Gandhi and other opposition lawmakers were apprehended by police on Wednesday as they marched towards Jantar Mantar, a designated protest site in India’s capital, New Delhi. … Opposition parties, their student units and the “Cockroach” youth movement have been demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, accusing the poll body he heads of benefiting Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.” (10/08/26)
- New US regime indictment charges Maduro with torture
Source: SFGate
“U.S. authorities charged former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro with conspiring to torture his fellow citizens in order to maintain his hold on power. The new indictment, unsealed Thursday, adds pressure on the ousted authoritarian leader already fighting drug trafficking offenses. Maduro, who was previously charged with participating in a conspiracy to send cocaine into the U.S., is now also facing allegations of human rights abuses during his reign as president of the oil-rich South American nation.” [editor’s note: Unless Venezuela is a US state or territory, there’s no US jurisdiction to try those allegations – TLK] (10/08/26)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/wife-of-ex-venezuelan-president-nicol-s-maduro-22467856.php
- DNC sues Trump administration over taxpayer-funded TV ads promoting president
Source: France 24 [French state media]
“The Democratic National Committee on Wednesday sued President Donald Trump’s administration for recent television advertisements that promoted his political message while costing taxpayers millions of dollars. The complaint, filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, alleges that the ads are illegal government-sponsored propaganda and accuses Trump of personally directing them. It asks the court to declare the ads illegal and stop the use of federal funds to pay for them. … The spots, which began airing in September, already have cost more than $12 million to run, according to the media tracking firm AdImpact, and a total of $20 million in Homeland Security Department funding has been tapped to pay for them.” (10/07/26)
https://www.france24.com/en/americas/20261007-dnc-sues-trump-administration-taxpayer-funded-tv-ads
- Annual Fundraiser Update
Hey, everyone …
Thanks to supporters CH and GB! Their contributions yesterday, totaling $75, bring our annual fundraiser total to $245.50!
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We only run one fundraiser a year. This is that fundraiser.
After 24 years (this December) as Rational Review News Digest, and another 12 years before that as Freedom News Daily and Libernet, I hope we’ve proven that we can and will reliably deliver your daily news and commentary update.
Please deliver on the financial support end, so we can continue that mission!
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Rational Review News Digest / Freedom News Daily - Naval drone hits oil tanker off Russian resort city Sochi, triggering massive blaze
Source: The Guardian
“An oil tanker off Russia’s Black Sea coast was struck by a naval drone, triggering a huge fire and black smoke cloud that blanketed parts of the resort city of Sochi, Russia’s transport ministry has said. The transport ministry said a Liberian-flagged tanker had been attacked and that ‘crude oil is burning openly in the waters of the Black Sea’. … A crew of 23 – all Indian citizens – had been rescued, it added. Russia and Ukraine have targeted commercial shipping around the Black Sea since the conflict began, and Russia has recently attacked grain vessels carrying Ukrainian goods near the coast of Romania. There was no comment from Kyiv on the attack.” (10/07/26)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/oct/07/ukraine-drone-hits-oil-tanker-russia-sochi
- ICE gang members told to ramp up daily abductions despite GOP unease as midterms near
Source: CNN
“Immigration and Customs Enforcement leadership told [gang members] nationwide on Tuesday to increase immigration [abductions] by 1,000 more people daily, returning to a previous goal of 3,000 daily [abductions], according to two sources familiar with the verbal directive. It’s the latest sign of ongoing pressure on [gang members] as the Trump administration doubles down on its immigration crackdown despite some Republican unease over who the agency is targeting. ICE also recently released a contract solicitation to expand holding space at agency offices, citing ‘exceptionally high operational tempo with increased [abductions].'” (10/08/26)
https://www.cnn.com/2026/10/08/politics/ice-immigration-arrests
- US aircraft lost or damaged in Iran war nearly doubles in latest congressional report
Source: Military Times
“An updated report from the Congressional Research Service, or CRS, now lists 81 U.S. military aircraft as lost or damaged since the United States launched Operation Epic Fury against Iran on Feb. 28. That is nearly double the 42 aircraft the research service counted in May, as Defense News reported at the time. The Oct. 5 revision adds jets damaged in a September Iranian strike on a base in Jordan, helicopter losses drawn from a Pentagon inspector general report and a sharply higher count of lost Reaper drones. CRS cautions that the total is not a count of destroyed aircraft, noting, ‘Some damaged aircraft may have been returned to active service.'” (10/07/26)
- New York Fed: Tariff price increases can take a year to fully show up
Source: Axios
“Tariff inflation has a long tail. Higher import costs can ripple through U.S. supply chains, with effects on domestically produced goods emerging as much as a year later, according to Federal Reserve Bank of New York researchers. The inflation hit from 2025 tariffs is fading, but newer levies are still feeding through to prices as inflation is already too high for policymakers’ comfort. … The authors previously found that U.S. companies and consumers bore most tariff costs earlier this year — research that Trump economic officials sharply criticized. … The researchers estimate that President Trump’s tariffs added 2.9 percentage points to consumer goods inflation by February 2026 (excluding services and oil).” (10/07/26)
https://www.axios.com/2026/10/07/trump-tariffs-fed-inflation-prices
- Report: US ambassador to Greece sought bribe from MAGA donor
Source: Hindustan Times
“A former Kentucky Congressional candidate and well-known donor of Donald Trump’s MAGA has come under scrutiny after a report on his alleged text exchanges with Kimberly Guilfoyle, the US Envoy to Greece and former fiancé of Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr. On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal published an explosive report alleging that Kimberly Guilfoyle allegedly texted Kentucky MAGA donor Eric Deters to pay her $100,000 credit card bill, offering multiple favors in return. The favors included using her connection in the Trump administration to help Deters with his issues with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Department of Justice.” (10/07/26)
- US 30-year mortgage rate hits 7.49%, highest in nearly 3 years
Source: Yahoo! Finance
“U.S. mortgage rates climbed for a seventh straight week to 7.49%, their highest level since November 2023, according to Mortgage Bankers Association figures released Wednesday, according to Bloomberg. The 30-year fixed mortgage rate climbed 19 basis points for the week ending Oct. 2, bringing its total gain over the past three weeks to roughly half a percentage point — the steepest three-week advance since early 2023. Total mortgage application volume fell 4.2% from the prior week.” (10/07/26)
https://finance.yahoo.com/real-estate/articles/u-30-mortgage-rate-hits-114328906.html
- Kagan, Soai share Nobel Prize in chemistry for work on homochirality
Source: Yahoo! News
“The Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to two organic chemists for ‘for the discovery of non-linear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis.’ Dr. Henri B. Kagan, 96, professor emeritus at Université Paris-Sud, France, and Dr. Kenso Soai, 76, professor emeritus at Tokyo University of Science, Japan, share the prize for their work, which could change the future of pharmaceuticals. … Some molecules like amino acids exist as two variants that are each other’s mirror image, but living organisms only contain one side of the image, which makes them homochiral. The other side is rarely found in nature. How this happened was a mystery to chemists. Kagan and Soai solved the puzzle.” (10/07/26)
https://www.yahoo.com/news/science/articles/kagan-soai-share-nobel-prize-154301115.html
- Before Regulating AI, Try the Laws We Already Have
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by John Chisholm“[W]e don’t have to anticipate every AI harm. AI is already regulated. Generally applicable law regulates conduct and harm, not the technology used to produce them. There is no AI exemption. Fraud is fraud, with or without AI. Negligence law applies to both AI developers and deployers. In 2024, for example, a British Columbia tribunal held Air Canada negligent over a refund policy its chatbot invented, rejecting the airline’s argument that the chatbot was responsible for its own words. Courts are also weighing product-liability claims—design defect, failure to warn—against AI makers. … These bodies of law hold those responsible liable for harms, which gives developers strong reason to prevent them.” (10/08/26)
https://fee.org/articles/before-regulating-ai-try-the-laws-we-already-have/
- Too Many in US Working Class Have No Political Home
Source: Common Dreams
by Les Leopold“To free the working class from MAGA’s Trumpian grasp, is a new political organization needed to topple the corporate interests that dominate both major political parties?” (10/08/26)
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/working-class-independent-association
- The “Warp Speed” That Worked Best
Source: Independent Institute
by Raymond J March“The World Health Organization declared an end to the COVID-19 public-health emergency more than three years ago. Its deaths, infections, hospitalizations, and other damage still leave us with a litany of questions about what could have been done better, sooner, or differently. It’s a long list: mask mandates, lockdowns, school closures, stay-at-home orders, curfews, delayed surgeries, etc. Operation Warp Speed, the public-and-private partnership with billions of dollars to bring us a COVID-19 vaccine quickly, never seems to be on it. Rather, the partnership remains hailed as ‘a triumph of public health policy,’ ‘miraculous,’ and ‘a new model for industrial policy.’ … For all the accomplishments of Operation Warp Speed, it was not the first of its kind. In fact, it has an overlooked and largely forgotten predecessor that didn’t require any government partnership at all.” (10/08/26)
https://www.independent.org/article/2026/10/08/original-operation-warp-speed/
- Douglass’s Two Constitutions
Source: Law & Liberty
by John O McGinnis“When Frederick Douglass began to appreciate the Constitution, it was a turning point in the drama of emancipation.” (10/08/26)
https://lawliberty.org/book-review/douglasss-two-constitutions/
- American Caudillo
Source: Persuasion
by Quico Toro“Venezuelans recognize strongman politics when we see them.” (10/08/26)
- Vaccine Injury: A Glimpse of the Scale
Source: Brownstone Institute
by Elizabeth Mumper“A birth cohort study at Henry Ford followed 18,000 children to compare chronic health outcomes between vaccinated and unvaccinated from birth through long‑term follow‑up. After multivariate adjustment, vaccination exposure showed a higher risk of chronic conditions, including asthma, autoimmune disease, atopic disease, eczema, and neurodevelopmental disorders. By 10 years of follow‑up, 57% of vaccinated children had chronic illness compared with 17% of the unvaccinated. Vaccination was independently associated with a 2.5‑fold increased likelihood of chronic health conditions. Academia chose not to publish the study, citing concerns about career repercussions.” (10/08/26)
https://brownstone.org/articles/vaccine-injury-a-glimpse-of-the-scale/
- Blue skies for blue-collar work
Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff“Is one of the world’s most pernicious social stigmas finally lifting? In late September, more than 1,400 young people from nearly 70 countries locked tools at the WorldSkills competition, testing their abilities across 64 crafts, from industrial robotics to culinary techniques. This Olympics-like contest, held in Shanghai this year, has grown in stature and scope over decades. And so, perhaps, has a favorable view of blue-collar work. A survey of the skilled tradespeople pitted against each other for four days found 71% believe the public image of technical and vocational careers has improved. Three-quarters (76%) of respondents say technical and vocational skills are increasingly important to the global economy. Yet just over half had been encouraged by parents or others toward traditional academic paths. In the United States, at least, such advice nowadays makes less sense.” (10/08/26)
https://www.csmonitor.com/Editorials/the-monitors-view/2026/1008/Blue-skies-for-blue-collar-work
- Senators Should Answer to Voters, Not Factions
Source: Townhall
by Armstrong Williams“Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said something out loud this weekend that many in Washington have long understood: Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), he argued, lives in fear of the far-left wing of his party. Thune pointed to Democrats blocking debate on military funding and a defense authorization bill, as well as resistance around the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. He also recalled the backlash Schumer faced after voting to reopen the government during an earlier shutdown fight. In Thune’s telling, Schumer learned the price of defying his party’s loudest faction and has deferred to it ever since. Thune’s criticism deserves scrutiny. He is a Republican leader making a partisan argument, and his account is not the whole story. But the larger point is difficult to dismiss: Party leaders increasingly govern under threat from their own flanks.” (10/08/26)
- Is Iran poised to withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty?
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Wendy Ramadan-Alban“These continuous calls by ultraconservatives to withdraw from the NPT have yet to produce an actual withdrawal because of a lack of political consensus. Iran has remained in the treaty despite the war, unprecedented economic pressure, and the return of U.N. sanctions. But is continued NPT membership still an asset for Iran?” (10/08/26)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/iran-non-proliferation-treaty/
- The Party of Rape
Source: Liberal Currents
by Adam Gurri“Republicans always attempt to pin any incident of violence aimed in their direction on liberals, who have done nothing more than point to the objective fact of Trump’s authoritarianism. Republicans, meanwhile, are openly the party of rape and domestic abuse. … The Republican Party is the party of Andrew Tate, of Richard Hanania, and, more than anything, of Donald Trump—a rapist, an open misogynist, and all-around avatar of male supremacism.” (10/08/26)
- Things Fall Apart in Ethiopia …
Source: Libertarian Institute
by Joseph Solis-Mullen“The underlying drivers were never mysterious. Prime Minister Abiy’s centralizing ambitions, to say nothing of his authoritarian tactics and ethnic chauvinism, have understandably collided with Tigrayan and Amharan demands for security and autonomy. Eritrea, which fought alongside Ethiopian federal forces against the TPLF in the last war, has since turned hostile. Relations between Addis Ababa and its former province turned neighbor deteriorated sharply as Abiy began again to discuss openly Ethiopia’s dire need for cheap and secure Red Sea access – particularly through the Eritrean port of Assab.” (10/08/26)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/things-fall-apart-in-ethiopia/
- The Case for Impeachment: If Trump’s misconduct is not impeachable, nothing is
Source: Philadelphia Inquirer
by Michael J Gerhardt & Michael Stokes Paulsen“The failure of impeachment to meaningfully check corrupt or tyrannical presidents, because of partisan acquittals, may be the Constitution’s greatest modern failure. It is a betrayal of the principles that inspired the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.” (10/08/26)
- Democracy [sic] Works When We Defend It
Source: OtherWords
by Nicholas Martinez“With less than a month before the midterm elections, attempts by President Donald Trump and his administration to keep certain Americans from voting will likely continue. Voting is how we get an equal say in the decisions that impact our lives, regardless of race, disability, zip code, language, or income. That’s why we need to ensure that every eligible voter can cast their ballot free from fear, intimidation, or unnecessary barriers. Anti-democratic forces might dominate the headlines, but they have not dominated the outcomes. That’s important. Our democracy is strongest when voters can fully participate. Our elections are strongest when election officials can do their jobs free from political interference. And our future is strongest when Americans believe that their voice matters.” (10/08/26)
- Whether It’s Banning Books or Preventing Macklemore From Touring, Silencing Artists Often Backfires
Source: CounterPunch
by Naveen Basavaraj“In 2003, singer Barbra Streisand tried to remove aerial photos of her home from the internet. But her efforts to take down the images only drove more people to seek them out. Two decades later, the Streisand effect has become a kind of internet maxim: Trying to bury something often ends up amplifying it. Working with colleagues at Carnegie Mellon University and George Mason University, I wanted to explore how this phenomenon plays out – and whether it’s simply internet folk wisdom or something that can be backed up with data.” (10/08/26)
- Crude Awakening
Source: The American Prospect
by Marueen Tkacik“A reviled ‘boligarch’ and his right-wing adversaries are engaged in a low-level war, but the only people who will feel the impact are the Venezuelan people.” (10/08/26)
https://prospect.org/2026/10/08/crude-awakening-alejandro-betancourt-venezuela-oil/
- Kill the Class Warfare
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob“Billionaires haven’t done anything wrong merely by earning great wealth. Typically, they’ve done something right. They’ve been industrious and entrepreneurial and helped people improve their lives. Typically, they earn their billions; which, incidentally, they don’t stuff under a giant mattress but invest further. This doesn’t stop the [proposed California wealth] tax’s demagogic proponents, like Ro Khanna, from claiming that the interests of the ‘donor class’ are inherently opposed to those of the ‘working class.’ Khanna wants government to privilege one ‘class’ over the other. But as Dmitri Bolt points out, neither should get a government-enforced advantage.” (10/08/26)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2026/10/08/kill-the-class-warfare/
- By Netanyahu’s Own Math, Gaza Is 3,900 September 11ths
Source: Antiwar.com
by Larry C Johnson“Benjamin Netanyahu likes to translate Israel’s grief into American. At the United Nations last month, he took the dead of October 7 and multiplied them by the ratio of America’s population to Israel’s. The 1,200 Israelis killed that day, he said, were ‘equal to 40,000 innocent Americans slaughtered in less than 24 hours. That’s 16 times 9/11.’ Per-capita comparisons are a perfectly legitimate tool. A small country feels a massacre more than a large one, and Americans should understand what October 7 meant to Israelis. But a method is only honest if you’re willing to apply it to everyone. So let’s apply Netanyahu’s method to the people his army has been killing for three years.” (10/08/26)
- Trump’s Iran war is costing us. Voters can make the GOP pay
Source: USA Today
by Rex Huppke“You can draw a direct line from the price at the pumps to President Donald Trump, who started a wholly unnecessary war with Iran, and the congressional Republicans who have done nothing to stop it.” (10/08/26)
- Repeal the Jones Act
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by William L Anderson“As any follower of Austrian economics knows, lawmakers—in any form—are usually the enemies of free markets and the prosperity that they bring. However, there are times when legislators manage to outdo themselves and pass laws that are absolutely destructive, and the Jones Act is one of them. A number of people have explained that, with most government programs, ‘the benefits are concentrated and the costs are diffused,’ and probably no legislation better reflects that truism than the Jones Act, which benefits a small number of people but lays costs upon the vast number of Americans that must pay for this legislation.” (10/08/26)
- Afghanistan, Again? Unlearned Lessons of America’s Longest War
Source: The Daily Economy
by Jeffery L Degner‘Congress rejected constitutional alternatives in favor of remaking a nation. Abroad, as at home, lawmakers cannot manufacture preferred social outcomes simply by spending more money.” (10/08/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/afghanistan-again-unlearned-lessons-of-americas-longest-war/
- Why Burglary Should be a Tort and Denting Fenders a Crime
Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman“Legal rules affect behavior on many margins. They affect incentives to commit offenses, incentives to prosecute them, incentives to prevent them. For some offenses tort law may provide better incentives than criminal law on one of those margins and worse on another. If so, the question of what ought to be a tort and what ought to be a crime will be ambiguous, at least until we develop a theory good enough to predict not only the sign but also the size of such effects. In this post I will argue that, judged by the incentive for potential victims to prevent offenses, our rules are backwards. Things we treat as crimes, such as burglary, ought to be torts; things we treat as torts, such as auto accidents, ought to be crimes.” (10/08/26)
https://daviddfriedman.substack.com/p/why-burglary-should-be-a-tort-and
- SCOTUS Ends Appeals of Former PA Judge Suspended Over Social Media Posts
Source: Jonathan Turley
by Jonathan Turley“This week, Judge Mark Cohen’s long, checkered judicial career came to an ignoble end. The Supreme Court denied his petition for certiorari to challenge the 2024 ruling by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court that he was properly suspended over a litany of partisan social media posts while a sitting judge. Cohen is a former Democratic politician who ran unsuccessfully for Congress, but served for many years in the state House until defeated in 2016. In 2018, Cohen successfully ran for the Court of Common Pleas. After receiving a ‘Not Recommended’ rating from the Philadelphia Bar Association, he barely won the seat with the second-lowest vote total among the victors. During this time on the bench, Cohen continued to maintain his political public persona with social media posts that many found injudicious and unethical. In October 2024, the Pennsylvania Court of Judicial Discipline took the rare step of ejecting him from the bench and suspending him without pay over his Facebook posts.” (10/08/26)
- Haitian Resolve and the Limits of Resilience
Source: Common Dreams
by Maxime Valbrune“Over the summer, the Supreme Court gave the Trump administration free rein to terminate Temporary Protected Status for Haitian and Syrian immigrants, along with hundreds of thousands of TPS holders from other countries, limiting the accountability any administration will have for making determinations about TPS for the foreseeable future. Last month, a young pre-med college student named Pierre Damas Bel from Springfield, Ohio was found dead, by an apparent suicide. He was suffering depression brought on by the termination of TPS and being forced to wear an Immigration and Custom Enforcement-issued ankle bracelet. What happened to Damas Bel represents the real human cost of these inhumane policies. But sadly, I don’t believe we have reached the nadir of this administration’s cruelty.” (10/08/26)
- Is Our Age of Mass Incarceration Collapsing?
Source: Reason
by CJ Ciaramella“Researchers argue that a profound generational shift by millennials and Gen Zers away from criminal behavior is ending mass incarceration and will ultimately reduce the prison population by 50 percent over the next two decades, with or without accompanying policy reforms. … As older generations such as baby boomers and Gen Xers have aged out of criminal behavior, which typically peaks between the late teens and mid-twenties, far fewer millennial and Gen Z offenders have arrived to replace them.” (10/07/26)
https://reason.com/2026/10/07/is-our-age-of-mass-incarceration-collapsing/
- AI in education gives us a chance to use the best tech to fix our broken schools
Source: Fox News
by Jon Hage & Ed Pozzuoli“For years, social media platforms expanded with few meaningful protections for child safety, transparency, age-appropriate design, parental visibility or independent oversight. Only after mounting evidence of harm did policymakers begin responding in earnest. By then, millions of children had already been shaped by systems designed to maximize engagement. Artificial intelligence (AI) gives us a rare chance to do better.” (10/08/26)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/ai-education-chance-use-best-tech-fix-broken-schools
- Don’t believe government necessary
Source: Eastern New Mexico News
by Kent McManigal“Without government protection, irresponsible people would be on their own, facing those they violate: the property owners they cause harm to with their vandalism, trash, and theft. There are better ways of handling this than relying on a gang funded through theft and obsessed with making sure it faces no consequences of its own.” (10/07/26)
- Some College Grades Need to Go Up
Source: Law & Liberty
by Joshua T Katz“Campus free speech sees little improvement in FIRE’s annual report.” (10/08/26)
- In Brazil, Absolutely Nothing Changes
Source: Persuasion
by James Bosworth“Flavio Bolsonaro, the son of former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, finished first in Sunday’s presidential election with 47 percent of the vote. He beat incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva—known universally as Lula—on 45 percent, while his right-wing Partido Liberal (PL) also dominated the votes for both houses of Congress. Brazilians will now head for a runoff election between the two men on October 25. Despite being a country where citizens say they are angry at the status quo and want change, Brazil just voted in favor of… rerunning essentially the same political fight it saw in both 2018 and 2022. The country’s politics, in other words, is stagnant.” (10/07/26)
https://www.persuasion.community/p/in-brazil-absolutely-nothing-changes
- You Can’t Run From Christian Nationalism
Source: Liberal Currents
by Holly Berkley Fletcher“As the midterms approach, there has been much focus on how to break the Trump coalition. But one bloc is either written off as hopeless or folded into other categories, when it has long deserved its own strategy and approach. Without the support of white evangelicals, Donald Trump would have never become president and certainly would not have dominated our politics for a decade. And MAGA will never be defeated until liberals approach white evangelicals with a strategy focused on their distinctive characteristics.” (10/08/26)
https://www.liberalcurrents.com/you-cant-run-from-christian-nationalism/
- These Minnesota parents were censored at a public meeting for saying school employees’ job titles
Source: Expression
by Matthew Harwood“A local school board in Minnesota has taken censorship to absurd heights. During the public comment period at Foley Public School Board meetings, concerned citizens are forbidden from saying not only the names of school staff and officials but even their titles. These revelations come from Blake and Katy DeMarais, concerned parents of a disabled and nonverbal special education student in the district. Over the summer, the parents complained that the district was failing to provide educational services to their son, only to be censored in a public meeting. … the Foley school board trampled on the DeMaraises’ First Amendment rights. When a school board opens a meeting to public comment, it can’t censor its constituents for criticizing school staff, much less simply naming them or mentioning their titles.” (10/07/26)
https://expression.fire.org/p/these-minnesota-parents-were-censored
- Is Palestine a Third Rail or Key to a Democratic Blue Wave?
Source: Informed Comment
by Alex Poppe“As the midterms draw near, I’ve been thinking about the role art plays in catalyzing political change. On September 12, the documentary film NAZA, which interrogates the systems used by the Israel government to target and calculate Palestinian civilian casualities in Gaza, was awarded the Special Jury Prize at the Venice International Film Festival after receiving a 25-minute standing ovation.” (10/08/26)
https://www.juancole.com/2026/10/palestine-third-democratic.html
- Private Electricity Grids Meeting the Data Center Moment
Source: Show-Me Institute
by Avery Frank“Private electricity grids, also known as consumer-regulated electricity (CRE), are a free-market policy idea that allows private entities to meet the demand of new large-load users like data centers entirely off the ratepayer-supported grid. Private electricity grids can benefit average ratepayers, developers, and government institutions like the Missouri Public Service Commission (MPSC) by shifting some of the risk and need for new electricity onto private investors, while also giving those investors the benefit of reduced regulation and quicker speed to operation. This has been an idea I have been beating the drum on for a long time. But recently, private electricity grids have started to be used in practice.” (10/07/26)
- AI Authoritarianism: A Government Without Constitutional Brakes
Source: Rutherford Institute
by John & Nisha Whitehead“Donald Trump promised to shrink the federal government. But what if Trump’s pledge to cut the federal work force wasn’t really about eliminating government bureaucracy but outsourcing it to the AI tech sector? What if Trump, with the backing of a self-serving industry eager to automate government, is instead helping to build a government that no longer needs as many human beings to operate it? Hundreds of thousands of federal workers are disappearing from the government payroll at the same time that Washington is racing to automate the work they once performed with artificial intelligence. … What we are watching unfold is the construction of a government that requires fewer human beings to carry out its will, fewer human beings to question its orders, and fewer human beings to stand in the way when efficiency collides with legality, morality or constitutional restraint.” (10/07/26)
- They Thought They Were Free: Are We?
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Richard M Ebeling“Americans celebrate the 250 years since the Declaration of Independence. They hail being a free people. They thank veterans and active military personnel for their service in keeping America free. But are we any more free in terms of the pervasive presence of government oversight, control, regulation, and planning of virtually every corner of everyday life than those Germans thought of themselves as free in the 1930s? Yes, we are not a dictatorship, but if both major political parties advocate and insist upon the same political paternalism, with the only difference being the forms and extent of it, how far is it, in fact, from living in a one-party state?” (10/07/26)
https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/they-thought-they-were-free-are-we/
- Here’s What to Do About Trump’s War Crimes
Source: Foreign Policy
by Anjali Dayal“U.S. President Donald Trump stood in front of the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 22 and made two explicit threats. He threatened to use military force in Latin America in service of U.S. interests, and he threatened annihilation for both the Iranian government and the Iranian people. The actions he proposed contravene both the international laws prohibiting war and the international humanitarian law that protects civilians in conflict. … the laws of war, themselves part of U.S. law, prohibit indiscriminate threats against a civilian population. Accordingly, Trump’s public deliberations about who to invade and who to annihilate were themselves crimes, committed in full view of thousands of diplomats and heads of state. … Many in the United States and around the world are desperate to see Trump and his top advisors held accountable for all this lawlessness but are at a loss for how to do so.” (10/07/26)
- Rising, 10/08/26
Source: The Hill
“Robby Soave gives his radar on a survey showing that nearly 90% of American senior citizens support higher taxes on younger workers to protect social security benefits.” (10/08/26)
- The Daily, 10/08/26
Source: New York Times
“A Failed Execution and the Future of the Death Penalty.” (10/08/26)
- The Daily Blast With Greg Sargent, 10/08/26
Source: The New Republic
“As Republicans start fearing they’re heading into George W. Bush 2006 territory, a leading forecaster explains how Trump’s low approval is expanding the map for Democrats in hidden ways.” (10/08/26)
https://newrepublic.com/article/216379/trump-polls-take-brutal-turn-allies-grow-rattled-worse-2006
- Year Zero with Tommy Salmon, 10/08/26
Source: Libertarian Institute
“Myth and Douglas Carter w/Kyle Matovcik and John Weeks.” (10/08/26)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/blog/myth-and-douglas-carter-w-kyle-matovcik-and-john-weeks/
- The Blessings of Liberty with Jeffrey Rosen, 10/08/26
Source: The Blessings of Liberty with Jeffrey Rosen
“Can states and municipalities sue oil companies over climate change?” (10/08/26)
https://rosenjeffrey.substack.com/p/can-states-and-municipalities-sue
- Advisory Opinions, 10/07/26
Source: The Dispatch
“SUNCOR Gets Complicated.” (10/08/26)
https://thedispatch.com/podcast/advisoryopinions/suncor-gets-complicated/
- TAC Right Now, 10/07/26
Source: The American Conservative
“Is Trump Winning the Hormuz Battle? w/ Rosemary Kelanic.” (10/07/26)
- The David Frum Show, 10/07/26
Source: The Atlantic
“Why American Cities Cost So Much and Deliver So Little.” (10/07/26)
https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/2026/10/david-frum-show-reihan-salam-american-cities/688915/
- SolutionsWatch, 10/08/26
- Checks & Balances, 10/07/26
Source: Checks & Balances
“Can Trump Take Control of the Midterms?” (10/07/26)
https://chkbal.substack.com/p/can-trump-take-control-of-the-midterms
- Politico Playbook Audio Briefing, 10/08/26
Source: Politico
“Knives out on MAGA Inc.” (10/08/26)
- Kibbe on Liberty, episode 407
Source: Free the People
“Socialist Affordability Is a Lie | Guest: Maggie Anders.” (10/07/26)
- The Chris Hedges Report, 10/07/26
Source: The Chris Hedges Report
“The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State (w/ Jill Lepore).” (10/07/26)
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-artificial
- Harrison Berger on The Kyle Anzalone Show
Source: Libertarian Institute
“Did Trump Consult AI Before Going to War?” (10/07/26)
- Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 10/07/26
Source: Antiwar.com
“Syria May Send Jihadists To Fight Ansar Allah in Yemen, Trump May Bomb Iran Before Midterm, and More.” (10/07/26)
- Gracearchy with Jim Babka, episode 171
Source: Gracearchy with Jim Babka
“How MAGA Plans to Steal the Libertarian Party Bus.” (10/07/26)
- Reason Roundtable 10th Anniversary Show
Source: Reason
“Join Nick Gillespie, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Peter Suderman, and Matt Welch as they celebrate a decade of the show with a special live taping.” (10/07/26)
https://reason.com/podcast/2026/10/06/live-reason-roundtable-10th-anniversary-show/
- The Fifth Column, 10/07/26
Source: The Fifth Column
“Europe Is Melting, Meritocracy Is Racist, and Everyone Gets Dignity.” (10/07/26)
https://www.wethefifth.com/p/europe-is-melting-meritocracy-is
- So to Speak: The Free Speech Podcast, episode 284
Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
“Venezuela is a cautionary tale w/ Jim Epstein and Germania Rodriguez Poleo.” (10/07/26)
- Reasonably Optimistic, 10/07/26
Source: Washington Post
“How America can recover from Trump-era politics.” (10/07/26)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/impromptu/how-america-can-recover-from-trumpera-politics/